Sunday, November 25, 2012

Heading out to Mom & Dad's friday, I saw a group of Walmart protesters on the corner near the store, in a biting, cold wind, the day after Thanksgiving, carrying signs, and notably, as our progressive friends would put it, "wrapping themselves in the flag" as one man carried a flag in the stiff wind, crossing the 4-way intersection one way each time the light turned. At first glance it would appear this was to be more dynamic and visible (there were maybe 6 people there) ... another explanation might be he had to do it to keep warm.

These were likely union members, as groups like the AFL-CIO lead the charge against WalMart. The dirty little secret is that Union Members are basically paid to be politically active. They're a huge part of the Democratic Vote Turnout Machine. Maybe there's not enough work for you this week, and the Union helps you through that, but... you need to be on the corner of Walnut and Horner on Thursday. Here's what you should say on the signs you carry. You need to be there from 10-4.

In other words, probably usually involuntarily in that cold wind the day after Thanksgiving.

Carrying signs about how unfair Walmart is to its employees, all working in the store today, voluntarily... for money.

A couple of good articles here today on the flip side of the Anti-Walmart talking points. One of them points out the average Walmart Shopper makes about $35K, while the average Costco shopper is in the $75K range. In other words, the poor shop at Walmart while the more well-to-do look down their noses at "People of Walmart" trying to get you not to shop there so that they can put Walmart out of business or force them to change their business model so that they will have to charge higher prices ... which will hurt whom?

Yeah, the poor people shopping there. Then they can all feel smug about how they forced Walmart's hand to make them more "fair" to their employees, all of whom work there of their own volition in the first place.

It this way progressive busybodies insert themselves into places they were not asked to make life "better" for third parties, and precipitate massive fail after massive fail.

That they actually hold different viewpoints, but it's OK for Obama to lie about his in order to get elected?

That Obama and Rubio both agree that people should be able to hold different viewpoints but only the person whose viewpoint on the subject jives with his should be able to hold office?

That all this talk of the value, nay, the absolute necessity of "diversity" of cultures and beliefs is all bullshit, or it's only good if The Enlightened Ones™ such as he are allowed to be in charge? (note this is the same thing as saying all cultures and beliefs are equal is all bullshit).

That Rubio's adherence to Adam Smith's theory of human economic behavior -- which is observable -- is comparable to his belief in the events surrounding creation -- which are not?

There are definitely two measuring sticks here. One for Marxist Secular Progressives, and one for Free Market Christian Conservatives.

For the record, I don't think the Earth is only 5,000 years old. But I'll not deny that it could be and we really can't find out for sure. Either story is ultimately a matter of faith in one thing or another, and I recognize that. And so, apparently, do Obama ... and Rubio.

For reference, here are those answers. You be the judge.

To Rubio December 2012 issue of GQ

Q: How old do you think the Earth is?

A: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.

To Obama.Messiah College in Grantham, Pa. on April 13, 2008

Q: Senator, if one of your daughters asked you—and maybe they already have—“Daddy, did god really create the world in 6 days?,” what would you say?A: What I've said to them is that I believe that God created the universe and that the six days in the Bible may not be six days as we understand it … it may not be 24-hour days, and that's what I believe. I know there's always a debate between those who read the Bible literally and those who don't, and I think it's a legitimate debate within the Christian community of which I'm a part. My belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth on which we live—that is essentially true, that is fundamentally true. Now, whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible: That, I don't presume to know.

Let's get to work on these movies and TV shows, Conservative Hollywood, singers, and songwriters. Bill Whittle:

"You have to ask yourself what the two messages are."

[..]

"Our message as conservatives is we are steely eyed missile men with our eyes on a far horizon. We have nuclear powered cars that can do 400mph. We believe in hot women and guns and things that go "boom!". We have a military that can vaporize any place on the earth in 20 minutes and not cost us anything but money. We're the proud inheriters of a brilliant future and everything we say and do reeks of money, success, and competence. That's our message.

Their message is that humanity is just a bunch of humans sitting around a thatched hut burning a cow pattie pulling fleas off of each other eating their sustainable algae cakes while they have an organic bake sale to raise money for the Guatemalan Water Snake.

If you're actually telling me that they're equally easy to sell, you're out of your mind."

Friday, November 23, 2012

This has been going around the net lately ... as humor. And yes, it is funny. I get it. But I think I should just non-judgemntally point out that what they're ultimately saying here is that they could choose to live heterosexual lives. If anyone outside "the movement" ever dares suggest this, of course, they are publicly ripped a new one. It's the complete opposite of the movement's narrative.

But hey. It's just a joke. Right? I said it was funny.

Eh. What do I care? I've been married almost 21 years to my "girlfriend".

Here's the bottom line. It's not illegal for gays to do what they want to do or to call it what they want to call it, and as they say, "the idea of 'gay marriage' is gaining more and more acceptance".

But what they are campaigning for is legislated acceptance. Forced. Top down. All nice and fluffy bunny stuff on the outside. But there's a bit of The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog going on here, too.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Got a bit of a head of steam up a bit ago when I ran across yet another "States Rights = Racism" ... um, "argument".

It's pretty tiresome getting compared (and not so subtly equated to) 19th Century Democrats and their attempted uses of that argument to argue unequal protection under the law based on race.

States Rights is not an invalid issue (what do you think the 10th Amendment means, anyway?) -- what they were arguing should fall under the purview of States Rights was wrong. States don't have the right to deprive you of your life, liberty, or property no matter what your race, gender, or creed may be. The Democrats were wrong about its application in this case, but not about the concept itself.

The Republicans have been pretty consistent on the Equal Protection issue. Only these days the tend to push back when people are pushing the other way making certain demographic groups into protected groups and given special treatment. It turns out that not only is it wrong, it hurts the protected groups in the long run.

The bigotry of low expectations is the sin of Democrats today. They think you can't get by without their help if you're in one of those protected groups, and they want you to think that, too. They get your vote, and give you just enough to get by but not enough to overcome the class envy on which they prey. They give you a sense of entitlement, and not much else.

I love these little "nuggets" of hystorical "wisdom" ... designed not to add to a discussion, but to short circuit any rational discussion on certain topics. "States Rights was used to justify slavery and racism, so any discussion of States Rights is automatically racist and shows how much you hate black people! End of discussion!!one!! And stuff!!!11!eleventy!"

It's the intellectual equivalent of throwing a stink bomb on the conference round table, and I, for one, have had my fill of it.

There have NEVER been ANY real communists, in any country. Those are banker stooges who THINK they have a communist government. NEVER. BEEN. TRIED. ANYWHERE. ANYTIME.

Ah, yes, the "it's never worked because it's never been properly implemented" meme.

Why has it never been properly implemented? Because it can't be "properly" implemented. The whole thing is contrary to human nature.

The fact is that it has been implemented to varying degrees all over, and the failures can be directly traced to the fatal flaw in Communism -- that it is directly incompatible with the human urge to better one's position in life.

Remove that incentive, the incentive to produce and innovate evaporates -- and everyone becomes equally poor, griping about how the system isn't giving them what they are "owed", and frustrated that there's nothing that any individual is allowed to do about it.
The only way it could ever possibly work would be if it were completely opt-in, opt-out ... but even then it would be doomed as people looking for a free lunch would opt in, and the people making the free lunches possible would eventually wake up and opt-out. And the only way to stop this is to have the kind of totalitarian top-down control these countries have devolved into -- directly proportional to the degree of "implementation" (thus rendering it not an opt-in, opt-out system -- negating the whole premise).

Friday, November 16, 2012

Over 500 rockets have been launched by Hamas into Israel over the last year ... 300+ of them in the last few days. After the Israeli airforce took out a Hamas leader, suddenly, there's a problem the administration and the media have picked up on.

From Scott Ott at PJTV:

Obama's U.N. Security Advisor says "The onus is on Hamas to de-escallate."

Meanwhile, in New York, the Palestinian emissary pleaded with the Security Council to make America remove the 'onus', but Obama said the 'onus' would remain in place until Hamas reduces daily rocket attacks on Israel to the previous, acceptable number.

To be filed away to comment on the next hysterical post about another business owner adjusting his practices to avoid taking the Obamacare hit.

"Should Comrade Franchise Owner voluntarily submit himself for re-education and a vigorous round of self-criticism for his backward-thinking attempt to make business sense out of the Glorious New World™ that 'we' just voted for, again?" - Bill Whittle

"Maybe peace would have broken out with a different kind of White House, one less committed to waging a perpetual campaign--a White House that would see a 51-48 victory as a call to humility and compromise rather than an irrefutable mandate."

Thursday, November 15, 2012

“If Sen. McCain and Sen. [Lindsey] Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me, and I’m happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received, and to besmirch her reputation is outrageous.” - Barack Obama

Note the sleight of hand here, the shift in focus. Nobody's "going after" Rice. What they're trying to do is get to the bottom of the administration's obvious attempt at a smokescreen with the video protest story. Her statement is evidence and must be considered. Whether or not she herself knew for a fact it was false or if she was just repeating what she had been told by others in the administration is a piece of the puzzle.

Obama's Knight in Shining Armor act here is more than just an act of huburis, it is an attempt to change the focus of the line of questioning.

Nobody said the man was stupid.

The media, on the other hand, seems to fall for this "Squirrel!!!!" tactic very easily.

Actually there seems to be a spate of good blog posts from my blogosphere today, starting with Van Harvey's Timelessness, on to the Nightfly's "Processed Thought-Like Substance", which then led me to Prof Mondo's post linked above.

Monday, November 12, 2012

There's a meme going around that Papa John's owner is "complaining" when he says the cost of Obamacare will likely result in a 14 cent increase in the cost of a Papa John's pizza. Of course, they cite his large house ... so of course clearly he's an evil man. He's been successful and he wants people to die for a mere 14 cents - that's the gist of the spin, it seems. Looks to me, doing the math, we're talking about $2.4 million (Update: I based this on 17 million pizzas a year x 0.14, which I found with a cursory google search. Apparently Papa John's says $5 million to $8 million). His full time employees are covered already. It's the part time employees that aren't. My guess is that these are mostly kids still on their parents' plans, working their first jobs or working through college - the nature of these kinds of jobs... the ones you get when you're establishing your viability as an employee.

When I read the story I get that he's not actually complaining, just stating the fact of cost. The people who are complaining are the people, apparently, who say they'd be happy to pay the 14 cents more for a pizza. I find this confusing.

The real problem is the Mom & Pop shop on the verge of success with around 45 employees thinking of expanding ... they won't.

Which means actually Obamacare helps the big corporate giants and hurts those on the brink of competing with them.

"Our job now is to get a majority in Congress to reflect the will of the American people". - Pres Barack Obama, 11/09/2012

Congress, unlike the Presidency, isn't a "Winner Take All" proposition.

You'd think a "Constitutional Scholar" would get how this whole Republic thing is supposed to work. The American People elected a Republican Supermajority in Congress, who largely campaigned on restraining runaway spending and fighting Obamacare.

Obama won the election in large part because the Democrats have a massive army of Union and other activist volunteers who are well organized who concentrate on high population areas to get high voter turnout from a lot of people who are disengaged from any sort of intellectual assessment of what makes America special, why it was designed the way it was, and why it is a bad idea to build large government programs that run directly against the principles upon which the country was founded.

Especially in our split political environment, you turn out a bunch of urbanites who spend their lives partaking of government programs that probably shouldn't exist, or should be far more limited when they do -- in high population areas, and you rack up your popular vote count.

But this doesn't work outside of these areas. You can't game the electoral college outstate where the only people who live in the district can vote for their representative. You can't get votes from Urban Cleveland to add to 5th district totals.

Congress is how we get everybody represented in a split country.

The Senate should go back to the pre 17th amendment Senate to restore the proper balance between the interests of the individual States and the less stable passions of the general population.

Sadly, this is not the case now, so what we have is two houses of representatives, one of them highly disproportionate in representation -- that being the Senate. So SOME gaming can occur. That gaming (and both sides do this) happens when people from other states and districts pour money and volunteers into campaigns in states and districts in which they do not live. I'd like to see this problem dealt with as well.

But ... imperfect as it is, Obama's just going to have to deal with the fact that America sent GOP Congressmen to say "No".

So when they call the GOP "The Party of No" for the next 4 years, the GOP should stand up and say "Damned Straight!"

Yup, it's those extremely extreme GOP extremists, who are extreme. Oh, and did he mention their extremism?

"The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American Politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise."

Yeah, let's look at that vote tally again. 50.5% for Obama, 48% for Romney, and if you combine the two major vote getters who got "Other" ... Ron Paul and Gary Johnson ... hardly bastions of progressivism -- you 50.5% to 49.5%.

31 Governorships out of 50. And a supermajority in the House of Representatives.

The GOP platform is not an "outlier" by any stretch of the imagination.

And one more thing about that above quote. Compromise itself is not a virtue.

Imagine one representative arguing that, say, that rape should be legal, and another candidate saying no it should not.

Too stark? It's an example of a principle, of course I picked a stark contrast just to disprove the meme. You've got to get the door open a crack before you can get a foot in it.

The "legendary moderate and center-right" legislators that the authors cite are one reason the GOP really needs to stop compromising anymore at all.

What has happened here is analagous to the old gag where someone asks for volunteers to step forward out of a line and everybody steps back. The GOP hasn't moved far to the right. The GOP is to the left of where the bulk of America was just a generation ago. What has happened is that the DOP (Donkey Old Party) has leaped farther and farther to the left, demanding compromise, and all to often getting it, only to leap further to the left and scream about how "extremist" the GOP is for not eagerly following. The revolutionaries are not the GOP. The people calling for Revolution Transformation, or, the dumbed down version that means anything anyone wants it to mean, "Change" .... are the Democrats.

Thursday, November 08, 2012

If conservatives are suddenly so concerned about government spending cuts increasing unemployment, is it too much to ask to have everyone exhibit some intellectual honesty and accept the fact that Keynesian spending by the government CAN create jobs and stimulate the economy? The only honest intellectual debate that remains is do we want Keynesian stimulus spending producing weapons systems we'll eventually be tempted to use to destroy things and kill people or spend those same dollars creating jobs that would rebuild crumbling infrastructure that itself supports more economic activity here at home?Putting it another way, if you're a child of this generation looking back on this madness from 2030 or 2040, would you prefer we left you the $100 billion dollar bill for some potholes and abandoned forward operating bases in Afghanistan or to revamp the flood prevention measures around a city of 6 million Americans? Your tax bill for your share of that $100 billion tab looks exactly the same, so what'll it be?

First, even Hayek, who knew Keynes back from WWI days -- they were actually friends -- will tell you that a quick burst of government spending can cause a short-term boost in economic activity. But there is no hard evidence that shows that it acts as a "pump primer". I know that's the theory, but I say it's wishful thinking. You might argue that Keynes won a Nobel prize in economics, but I will counter that so did Hayek -- and they disagreed on almost everything when it came to economics.

I know that folks like Paul Krugman believe that the government borrowing money the economy has not yet produced, or pulling money out of the economy that it has already produced via taxation stimulates the economy. And every time it's tried and doesn't work, the Krugman crowd's response is that it's only because we didn't borrow or tax *enough*. I say it's ludicrous, but let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that it's true.

We have two questions to answer now, and they both ultimately have to do with the role of government. 1) Why don't we borrow $30 Trillion a year indefinitely, if our return on investment is going to be, what do they say, 1.5 ... we'll actually make $15 Trillion on the deal. Hell, we could pay off the national debt in just a little over a year, so why don't we just borrow or tax $32 Trillion this year and be done with it?

It does sound quite ridiculous when you put it that way, but that is the logical end to that line of thought. And where it goes wrong is that ... money isn't wealth. Money is a representation of production. Printing more doesn't make more production; it devalues money because it's more money representing the same amount of production.

Borrowing it is a little trickier, because what you're doing is betting. You are betting that you can produce enough in the later to cover the money you borrowed, and more.

Aha! you say, this is what Keynes is talking about! You *can* make more down the road than you borrowed, thus, it's ok if the government does this on our behalf! QED!

Well ... no it isn't ok. And why it's not OK is, among other things, moral hazard. 1) it puts the government in charge of picking winners and losers, and 2) the money does not come out of the pockets of the people doing the spending so the risk is not ultimately theirs, 3) it violates the tenet of equal protection under the law, and 4) it becomes a honey pot for nepotism, fraud, and waste.

Ah, you say, but it is no different than military spending!

Well ... yes it is. Welfare programs, whether they be private or corporate, are not the purview of the Federal Government. It violates the intent of the Federal Government that the states created mainly for ... wait for it...

National Defense.

It was also created to protect our inalienable rights, and to regulate (that is, to make regular, ie, consistent -- but not to restrict) interstate commerce. States couldn't charge tariffs on each other’s goods, nor could states charge different tariffs in international trade. That is the meaning of the commerce clause, nothing more.

Now... we may disagree, and we have from practically the beginning, when and when not to use military force. But most of us agree that we need a military, and it's really not worth having one if it isn't strong enough to overwhelm enemies in a battle -- and that further, having a particularly strong one will actually deter enemies from attacking us. And it's actually one of the main enumerated powers of the Federal Government.

When we get into a war, we should fight it to win, and sometimes that might mean borrowing money against future production. This is the cost of war, but it is at least actually the job of the Federal Government.

By arguing that having a military just tempts us to use it, are we arguing we shouldn't have one at all, or that we shouldn't have a strong one, or that we shouldn't pay what it takes to win a war once we're actually in one?

If not, just what *are* we arguing?

That sometimes men with power are tempted to use it? Actual conservatives are very clear on that. It is the WHOLE PURPOSE behind the intent of limiting the power of the government.

Now it is also true that we do have people in the conservative movement often referred to as "neocons" (which literally means, "new conservatives") -- but let's talk about who they are.

They are former "liberals" (I still hate that statist progressives successfully stole that name from the original liberals, who are now called classical liberals ... conservatives only in that they are trying to conserve classical liberalism) ... they are former liberals who were convinced that the classical liberals were basically correct, and were relatively recently converted to the conservative side. But they brought some of their progressive ideals with them, one of them being that we should spread Liberty throughout the world.

I'm all for spreading liberty, don't get me wrong. And I also don't have a problem with, as a byproduct of a war we got into for other reasons, we do our best to plant a little seed to leave behind and hopefully grow. Certainly, spreading liberty in and of itself isn't a reason to go around starting wars. I think even most neocons would agree. But that spreading is a noble thing to try once one has been started, I'll go along with that.

But we've digressed a little here. The question was, is there a difference between borrowing and spending by the Federal Government for infrastructure rather than military spending?

However, I believe the question itself was intellectually dishonest, because the $100 Billion on roads and infrastructure isn't the main problem, and we're not talking about $100 Billion. We're talking about $4 Trillion in 8 years under Bush which was bad enough, and so far an additional $6 Trillion under Obama in under 4 years (getting us up to $16 Trillion). I think we can expect well over $20 Trillion by the end of his second term.

$100 Billion is six tenths of one percent of the problem. $4 Trillion of it is from fighting the two wars. The other $12 Trillion and probably $16 Trillion by 2020 went to .... roads???? Damn we must have some mighty fine roads. As far as I'm concerned you can build the roads and levies and whatnot. These things fall easily under the original intent of General Welfare.

But let's not pretend that conservatives are "suddenly" concerned about fiscal responsibility. They always have been. What you're really arguing for is absolution for Democrats' shopping list with out-of-control, rampant, extremely irresponsible spending using the tiny strawman of maintaining roads and bridges and implying conservatives would rather be killing brown people all over the world, as the Chris Matthews of the world like to pretend while they morally preen on camera.

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Someone again brought up the "Urban Myth" of the Sarah Palin "Death Panel".

*Sigh*

It's only an "Urban Myth" in that the words "death" and "panel" don't appear next to each other in the bill. Besides, Palin never said the bill created "death panels". She did suggest that such a thing would necessarily come into existence when you have a single payer in charge of deciding what's going to be paid for (and therefore what's going to happen) or not.

If you read Rham Emanuel's brother "Zeke's" writings, he talks of an almost mathematical system for calculating how much and what quality of life a person has left in them and whether it's worth it to keep that person alive. Guess who had a big hand in the push for this bill?

Now this bill doesn't go that far. It didn't get us to "single payer", or even to the public option -- not in writing anyway. But that is the ultimate goal, and if you doubt it, check out the quotes listed here.

or this:

(which he of course claimed he wasn't for while he was pushing for this bill, and was able to scoff at people who said that's where this was leading because ... no, it's not in the bill) But there are huge blank sections of the bill to be filled in later by unelected bureaucrats and regulators, and as I said, this is their goal, no questions about it. How to get it by a reluctant congress? Have them pass a bill that doesn't have it in there, and just write it in later - because the bill says that this and/or that will be written in by the head of the department of such and such.

And even if it's not written in.... what is going to happen?

It is designed specifically with an eye toward killing of health insurance companies over time.

No, really. I'm not bullsh*itting:

"This is a fight about a strategy for getting there, and I BELIEVE WE *WILL*". Hear that?

The ones that survive will be mere marionettes with their strings being pulled by the same government bureaucrats, private in name only. Sort of like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, only for insurance. Bureaucrats will call the shots, and when policies fail, the "private" owners will be blamed. All of the authority, none of the responsibility. Not a recipe for success. For those who know their history -- that is what real fascism looks like. No, the word "fascism" doesn't appear in the bill.

But a rose, by any other name, or even no name at all, is still a rose. Same with a pile of dog cr*p.

Once you have a single payer system controlled by the government, there will be bureaucrats who will get to decide who is worth paying for and who isn't. I don't care what you call it, it will happen.

Palin called them "death panels".

She was absolutely right, just like she was absolutely right about most of the things the media said she got wrong. She doesn't say things in soaring, airy ways. She says things like she see's 'em. And she's got a lot of sense. This is why so many of us liked her, and still like her. Obama can give all the soaring hot air speeches he wants. All it does is provide cover for the bullsh*t "Fundamental Transformation" of the country which is his STATED, and REAL agenda.

This is how the Great American Experiment ends. When people figure out they can vote themselves money from the treasury. That moment is essentially here, and yesterday's election is but the smoking gun symptom for the diagnosis.

Oh, sure, the buildings and roads still stand. People will still get up and go to work to feed their families and themselves. If they have to.

But we've officially said "you don't have to".

Those buildings, over time, will wear on the outside, essentially looking the same. But as surely as the Hallett and Harmon Drug Store building in Brownsburg, IN looked the same as it did in 1974 when I cruised by it a few years ago. It may have even had the old name of the store it used to be painted on the brick outside. It's a flea market inside now, not a drug store. A fitting analogy. They sell the worn goods from an age that took pride in the things it made in a building that was built in an age where people took pride in what a building looked like.

Obamacare will stand. The only way to stop it is State Nullification now, and I don't see that happening. America doesn't have the gonads anymore. I overheard a conversation yesterday where a conservative was telling a liberal that Obamacare is not socialized medicine. And technically, as layed out, it is not - yet. But it is designed specifically with an eye toward killing of health insurance companies over time. The ones that survive will be mere marionettes with their strings being pulled by the same government bureaucrats, private in name only. Sort of like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, only for insurance. Bureaucrats will call the shots, and when policies fail, the "private" owners will be blamed. All of the authority, none of the responsibility. Not a recipe for success. For those who know their history -- that is what real fascism looks like.

Money, instead of going mainly to the makers, will go to the takers. Instead of a generally merit based economic system where what you do can get you ahead, it will be a system where the political class controls it all, and it will be who you know. They'll hand out the crumbs in exchange for votes when the pseudo elections roll around every few years.

The national debt will hit $20 Trillion over the next 4 years. The mainstream media will look the other way, or blame it on Bush and the rich who "won't give up their 'fair share'". People will believe it, even though confiscating all of the wealth of everyone making over $1,000,000 a year wouldn't even come close to making it disappear.

We can't tax our way out of it. We apparently voted not to produce our way out of it. So we will be forced to inflate our way out of it with "QE" after "QE". It could get very ugly. Weimar ugly. I hope not. But it'll likely get at least Greece ugly.

Gun and ammo sales will soar over the next several months. But laws will be passed. Treaties will be signed. And eventually, American gun ownership will be like Canadian gun ownership, or worse.

Only criminals and cops will have guns. And there won't be enough cops when a criminal comes barging in your door, knowing you don't have any. And if you do have one you'll be thrown in jail for using it in self-defense, for violating the criminal's "civil rights".

It won't happen overnight. It'll be like a rental house. Someone used to live in it and keep it up because it was their property. But the new tenants ... while pleased with the outside appearance the day they move in, don't know the first thing about home maintenance, and it's not their loss when it starts to crumble.

The landlords won't have incentive to keep it up, either, as long as someone will move in and pay rent. It's the rent that matters. The income. What net can they get out of it while it lasts. Until it crumbles. Then they'll raze it and sell the lot.

It's Vulture Socialism. Like Maggie Thatcher says, it'll only work until you run out of other people's money.

Monday, November 05, 2012

"To those who think that their vote is just one vote and doesn't matter, well, with respect -- you're dead wrong. No single raindrop determines the size of a river but whether raindrops fall or don't fall, does. "

Friday, November 02, 2012

Last night it started to get dark, especially toward evening. It continued to get darker, and I knew something had to be done. By midnight, I had my plan together. I plugged in a night light in the hallway.

Sure enough a few hours later, it started to get lighter outside. And lighter, and lighter, until daylight came back.

I saved the day. Literally.

The Obama administration is pushing this graphic and saying that people really need to see it before they go into the voting booth.

So ... let's talk about what's going on in the Administration's graphic (right). First, you see job loss. You see the massive "Recovery Plan" passed, and you see jobs gained.

But wait a minute. This is exactly what we'd expect, indeed, the Obama administration said we could expect ... if we did nothing about it. Market forces would foment re-adjustment, and jobs would come back, no matter what we did.

Here's another graphic based on administration data. Unemployment projections with, and without government intervention, and, in red, we've added the actual, real data.

Now.... look at the lower, darker line, which is what we were told would happen, it's worse than what the Obama administration said would happen if we did nothing.
The argument they're trying to make with their graphic is that the Recovery Act is what brought jobs back.

But if you look what the chart above shows, the logical conclusion is that the Recovery Act .... made it worse!!!!!!!!

Oh, sure, there are more jobs than there were before we hit rock bottom, but rock bottom was worse with the plan than it was projected to be with out, and way worse than it was projected to be with the plan, and it's still about 2 points higher than it was projected to be by this time without it.

So it was agreed ahead of time that whether we did something or not, we'd lose jobs to a certain point, and then gain them back. Not just by the "crazy right-wingers" -- by the Administration itself.

And now we're supposed to give the administration credit for what everyone agreed would happen anyway ... and it's not even that good!

You see in the chart the effects of the market trying to do its thing despite the monumental increase in debt we've taken on and the looming tax increases not to mention the extra economic drag of the Obamacare Tax Increase.

This is why the Rahm and his fellow Alinskyites said "Never
let a crisis go to waste" at the beginning of the crisis triggered by the
housing bubble bust. It's because it's cover. You can use the opportunity to
do a whole lot of things you'd otherwise never get away with ... and when the
inevitable turnaround comes, you can say it was your plan that did it -- and if
it takes too long you just point at the previous guy and blame him.

Sorry -- not buying this desperate last-minute plea from the O Admin.

This guy said he'd cut the BUSH deficit in half by the end of
his first term. The last deficit of Bush's term was just under $500B. A
staggering addition of ~$4T over 8 years. Since Obama took over, the annual
deficit almost tripled the first year to nearly 1.5T, and dropped to about 1.2T
the next couple of years and ... so far projected at $.1T this year, still more
than double Bush's worst year. This is not making excuse for Bush deficits, but
as you can see what comes out of his mouth and what actually happens are
incongruous. He's added to the debt an average of $1.5T a year compared to the
$500B/2 = $250B a year he promised (by inference ... cut $500B in
half).

Given that, and Anita Dunn's bragging about their ability to
"control the message" and Mark Lloyd's concern for the same (learning, as he
said, from Chavez's "incredible democratic revolution") given the opaque
cover-up of Fast and Furious and the blatant ... I'll be kind and call it
"misdirection" of what happened in Bengazi and the fact that the head of the BLS
works for the same Administration ....

Yeah, I take anything that comes out of this Administration
with about a 5 lb bag of salt, especially in an election year. Although, it
really seems like the man has been campaigning non-stop since 2007. That could
be just me. But I don't think it is.

To be a hurricane, a tropical storm must have winds in the 74, and a category 1 hurricane's range goes up to 95 mph. Sandy made landfall with 80 MPH winds.

It gained some subtropical characteristics when it collided with a strong autumn cold front. This is not the first time a hurricane has done this. And it won't be the last time.

It is true that the storm grew to a massive size, but this was due to its metamorphasis from a storm with mainly tropical characteristics to a storm with the mechanics of much larger subtropical winter storms as it entrained cold air and gained the favorable development environment from its position on the lee side of a strong trough.

It's not due to higher temperatures due to man's CO2 emissions.

The devastation is largely due to the geography of the coastline it hit and the width of the hurricane force wind field. And that width, again, had more to do with the metamorphasis into a subtropical system.

The most dramatic devastation was due to a fire. Not destruction by the kinds of winds we saw with Andrew, which was a category 5.

A few days ago Andrew Sullivan made it a point to point out that if North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida flipped to Romney, then -- and I'll use his wording here (note his tone, facial expressions, and body language as well -- he's speaking absolutely, and has a smug look of satisfaction after he says it. It's his shot of goodperson amphetamine for this segment.)

"If Virginia and Florida - go back to the Republicans, it's the Confederacy, entirely."

"You put the map of the Civil War over this map, you've got the Civil War."

The "subtle" point here is, if you vote Republican, you're a slave-owner-backing racist. If that's not the point of saying this, why say it?

He later pretends to walk it back a bit, after he's made his bold, soundbite psychological talking point to be picked up by others in the media and in the professional and amateur punditry across the country (and that is the point here) by saying that he means the white people who have changed their minds are only in the Confederacy.

Which is also not true, and it will be reflected in this upcoming election.

Sullivan's 4th grade "analysis", as opposed to Will's much more serious analysis, deliberately dismisses the data outside of the Confederate states, and then, "viola", we're supposed to be surprised that the state's he's talking about have seen this flip and we're fighting the Civil War again (and if you vote Republican, you're on the wrong side, nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Just to drive that point home, he adds the line:

"Here's the map of the states in 1861, colored for their position on slavery"

And shows said map.Yup. If you vote Republican, you back slavery. Don't think that's what they're trying to say here?

That's the meme.
Now Andrew apparently knows that it was the Republicans who ended slavery and passed virtually all of the Civil Rights legislation between then and 1970 (so hey, at least we've gotten that point across), but he brings up the other meme ... that the parties switched sides.

"The parties, of course, have switched sides since the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The party of the Union and Lincoln is now the Democratic party. The party of the Confederacy is now the GOP. And racial polarization is at record levels, with whites entirely responsible for reversing Obama's 2008 inroads into the old Confederacy in three Southern states. You only have to look at the electoral map in 1992 and 1996, when Clinton won, to see how the consolidation of a Confederacy-based GOP and a Union-based Democratic party has intensified - and now even more under a black president from, ahem, Illinois.

Will correctly points out that we're talking about a very small percentage of white voters changing their minds. Now what Andrew is missing is that that very small percentage of white voters changing their minds is pretty much across the country. It won't make a difference in the outcome in solid blue states -- but ones that aren't solid ... they're going to turn red whether it's in the north or the south.

Now, Mark Newman has an excellent, facts-only, analysis of voting geography out here.

And on it, if you read the whole thing (and I encourage you to do so), you'll find this map.

I've seen this map before as well, and one thing I note is that, in general*, the bluest regions are the regions with the high population-density centers ... that is ... big cities. Andrew's right about one thing.

We are in a new civil war. Just not the one he's trying to portray it as.

It's not a north vs south geographical war. It's a culture war. And the numbers are roughly 50/50. That's why it's gotten so contentious.

My theory is that people living outside of cities, in more rural areas -- have retained the American ideals of personal responsibility and the recognition of the sanctity of the individual whereas people in large population centers have become more accustomed to the thought of collectivism and covetous and accepting of expanding government services. Whether this is a result of the close proximity in living arrangements, or the flocking of people who wish to take advantage of government services flock to those areas, or the more successful people who drive by the glaring displays of poverty in parts of the cities are alleviating some of their guilt by voting have others pay for what they will not themselves voluntarily -- or ... most likely, some combination of these -- I think it is largely an urban/rural culture war.

And culture wars are not won in the voting booth.

They're won in dining rooms and living rooms and around the water cooler.

* note that many rural counties, especially in the west, are geographically large and therefore will show a large area of blue if there is a decent sized city within its boundaries. Also, demographics do matter. Areas with large numbers of retirees or ethnic minorities who vote to retain special privileges that come with being in the right ethnic minority or other demographic I think do show up on the map, but in general, it's the population centers and proximity to them that seem to me to be the main driver.